|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Apologetics Ministries | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
The Old Testament 
The Exodus: Numbers and Logistics Or, Are These Numbers for Real? Brent Hardaway and J. P. Holding [Population and Birth Rates] [Matters Before Leaving for the Exodus] [Logistics During the Exodus] [Comparison: The Scythians] [Addendum: The 'Elep Solution] Is it possible that the Israelites grew from a clan of 70 to a nation of 2-3 million that left Egypt in the Exodus 430 years later? Is the Bible's depictions of scenarios associated with this event reasonable? The answer is yes -- the Exodus, although an event blessed often by divine intervention, does not in and of itself beyond that offer any scenarios that are unreasonable or impossible. It is our purpose in this essay to examine some common objections to the practical historicity of this event; that is, not issues having to do with archaelogy, for example, but whether such a mass movement of people is people is possible at all within the context of what is claimed in the Bible. [JPH note: My one response to a critic, Brett Palmer, who addressed this essay -- Brent will handle the rest below -- is that it is a shameful polemical tactic to complain that this essay does not go off subject and out of expertise as he obnoxiously thinks it should to address the archaeological issues. However, if he does want to play that game, we do have a "Scythian challenge" below, which he ignored, and links atop our Exodus page that he can play with. Palmer claims now that nothing we have "deals specifically with the archaeological data"; he apparently needs glasses to see the link to Miller's site we offer, and also vainly tries to deny his polemical effort with the excuse of "curiosity" to know more about what is plainly said to not be our subject of interest.) We may begin by answering the most fundamental objection of all -- whether indeed that initial clan of 70 could have grown to 2-3 million within the required timeframe. First of all, look at the family listings in Genesis 46, and the sons born to Jacob’s sons. There are a total of 51 sons that could have lived to produce offspring. If we assume that there was one female born for every male, we would have 102 children. That comes to a total of 8.5 children per family. Let's illustrate the population possibilities with a true-life modern-day Jacob, a fellow named Samuel Must. You can find this fellow listed in any recent Guinness Book of World Records; he died in 1992 at the age of 96, with the honor of being the world’s record-holder for having the most living descendants. He had 11 children, 97 grandchildren, 634 great-grandkids, and 82 great-great grandkids. (Ouch!! That would get expensive at Christmas time!!) What would happen if Mr. Must took his clan to live in a foreign country and his descendants continued to live and multiply for 430 years at the same rate? We will take Mr. Must, his wife, his 11 children, and assuming that they all found mates, his family’s total population would have been 24 once they had finished their child-bearing years. Working out the numbers, let's assume that his family continued to procreate at a rate of 4.5 births per person (which works out to about 10 children per family). If each generation lasts 29 years, then the descendants that give birth in generation X (no pun intended) would pass away in Generation X+2, when their grandchildren were being born. So, the first generation produces the following results: Generation// Starting population + Births + Marriages = Population
After the first generation, let’s assume that his children start intermarrying, so no one is added to the clan via that route. Generation// Starting population + Births - Deaths = Population
Now, if this rate continued, the population at the end of 430 years would be over 50 billion (if you don’t believe me, do the math). But, to save that Christmas money, let’s assume that the Mustrealites start getting conservative in the 4th generation, and only have 4 kiddos per family, or 1.15 per person. (The numbers are rounded, so they may not add up exactly.) Generation Starting population + Births - Deaths = Population
At the end of 15 generations, which would not even take the full 430 years needed, the total population is well over the 3 million most commentators suggest as the total population, and without any strain to credulity, or even any miraculous intervention. Skeptical objections to the growth of the Israelite population are simply unreasonable. In response now to some criticism, Brent has some replies. Critic responses are in italics and Brent's responses are in normal type. ...if Joseph's clan can grow from 70 to 2.5 million in 430 years then surely there is nothing to stop every other man's clan from doing the same. Other than the fact that it happens very rarely? So is someone winning the lottery not feasible because so many millions don't? Or, if one person wins the lottery then there's nothing to stop every one else who buys a ticket from winning as well? ...all through the essay assumptions abound, it is full of unsupported assertions. The first assumption is 'If we assume that there was one female born for every male, we would have 102 children. That comes to a total of 8.5 children per family.' Now why assume this, is it reasonable to assume that families come in packs of one male and one female, does the author have any evidence from the time period that this is reasonable? Well, that's about what it comes out to. We can fiddle with the ratio, maybe bump it up to 52 males for every 48 females, or vice versa, but it's still going to come out approximately the same. Where will you run to then? Also minor technicality here, 8.5 children per family, surely he means an 'average' of 8.5 children per family, another mark off for poor presentation skills. Well, since you so "surely" get the point, I guess the presentation isn't so bad, is it? (JPH: I can also ask why the .5 doesn't make it clear that WHOLE children, not an average, are not in view!) 5. The author then goes on to use a 'modern day Jacob' to illustrate the possibility of the number in the Exodus group...What he does here causes more problems that it solves! The strange thing is, he doesnt need to use anyone as an example, we have the stats for Jospeh's [sic] family... The example was listed because you people don't believe the Bible. Remember? Hey, do you mean that you're going to start giving it the benefit of the doubt? ...work the population growth out from there and apply that growth rate across the whole of that area of the world, if it is not an unreasonable scenario then apply it to everyone. So if it didn't happen to everyone, than it didn't happen to anyone, right? Oh, yeah, I forgot. In your universe everyone wins the lottery! May I come join you? There are numerous internal inconsistencies within the essay, one example if that the author would like to wipe out an entire generation as soon as their grandchildren are born! However, the person used as an example of a modern day Jacob was alive long enough to see 82 great great grandchildren born! If the author is using a person as an example then he has to be consistent and thus has to have everyone living until at least their great great grandchildren are born. On average, a person would die sometime in the generation that his grandchildren was born. Some would die later, some sooner. But, hey, ok, let's just assume great longevity for everyone. We can cut down the number of children needed per family, and it becomes all the more credible. No, wait, we'd better take that medical advances stuff into account. New Objections from the critic, and Brent's answers: However, it seems to have escaped both Mr. Holding’s and Mr. Hardaway’s attention that the Guinness Book of World Records records unique events, and in this case is not relating something that is typical and extends through generations. Even what occurred to Mr. Must is singularly unique even in his own family (otherwise he’d hold the tying record or would have been outdone by one of his progeny)!" The argument is not that Jacob's family was typical and "un-unique", just possible. This is stated very clearly in the very first paragraph! [JPH: Sarna [96ff] readily admits that such growth is "technically feasible" and gives the more modern example of French Canadians, who expanded from a community of around 3000 in the year 1660 to "several million within three centuries" -- less time, and more people to boot! He also noted the example of 19th century Russian Jews who between 1825 and 1900 expanded from 1.6 million to 5.175 million. Sarna does not accept that such growth actually happened with Israel (based for example on an erroneous understanding of ancient geneaological practice), but it is clear that there is no practical objection to such growth happening, and that to make anything of "uniqueness" is to miss the point. In further response Palmer simply waves off these points as of "no relevancy" saying that "more than mere population growths need to be compared" and hash is made from other factors which Sarna mentions and that Brent has already dealt with, and will deal with further as his time allows. Sarna's objection that the "land of Goshen" could not support such a population applies just as well to the area that the Scythians inhabited; but it is not as if Israel were limited to Goshen in terms of where they grew their crops, as Sarna implies.) This means of course that Mr. Must and his wife should only be bearing children in the first generation. This would have been all well and fine if Holding & Hardaway had followed through with this assertion. However, as will be noted below, Holding & Hardaway’s calculations continue to have Mr. Must and his wife bearing children through a total of three generations! They do not. Mr. Palmer has erred here. The 4.5 children born per population number doesn't mean that every family was giving birth. Then, there would have been 9 children per family, not 10. It is common to state national annual birth rates at X per 1,000 population. See here for example. I merely followed this convention, ableit on a generational, not an annual basis. Notice that in generations 4-15, which Mr. Palmer lists, the children born in one generation is about double the children born in the previous one. Ergo, one per population member, about 2 per person, and 4 per family. Although extended families might have occupied more than one house, high mortality rates probably kept most families from achieving the biblical ideal. But, by the same token, there were plenty of people who died long before they had a chance to turn 40 Another consideration that Holding & Hardaway fail to note is the number of men that may have died before siring children Undoubtedly, many bibilical characters at the time lived extraordinarly long lives. Indeed, the scriptures affirm that it was God who made the Israelites a great nation. The argument that this growth doesn't require divine intervention or stretch credulity is simply in reference to the sheer number of births (which was made perfectly clear in the first paragraph). The argument is not that God didn't provide Israel with low infant mortality figures or extraordinarily good health in general. Such an assumption that for every male born there was a corresponding female begs the question of whether or not such a biological oddity is true. We also don’t have the figures for the number of men who actually were married and sired children. Surely, unlike Holding & Hardaway’s ideal scenario above, not every male and female from each generation married and produced children. Even from those who did marry, how many couples were infertile? Calculating this average on an ancient population is impossible, but according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, infertility affects 10% of the current U.S. reproductive age population....The percentage of the reproductive population of ancient Egypt which was infertile had to be much higher. For simplicity's sake we did not factor these in. Yes, a completely equal male/female birth rate would have been an oddity, but a significant inequality would also have been an oddity. Yes, some couples would have been infertile, but this would have been compensated by for by families that had more than the average number of children. Holding & Hardaway also do not consider the fact that not all pregnancies end in live births. There is a certain percentage of miscarriages in every 1000 confirmed pregnancies. Irrelevant. The argument is not based on the number of pregancies, but of possible live births, which Palmer has not shown to be unreasonable. Now for Brent Hardaway's answer to Palmer's 2005 response:
In response, Mr. Hardaway claims, The argument is not that Jacob's family was typical and "un-unique", just possible. “Possible” in one generation, or even two to three, is one matter. But, as Holding and Hardaway need for their original scenario, this “possibility” needs to extend for 430 years. As I noted in my article, They [Holding and Hardaway] then ponder what would have happened to Mr. Mast’s family, given this propensity to propagate [in the manner of Mr. Mast], if they had moved to a foreign country and had “continued to live and multiply for 430 years at the same rate.” It would seem in response, Mr. Hardaway has forgotten what was written in his and Mr. Holding’s original article! I admit that that sentence was not properly worded, as there would have been two different rates of growth - the first massive rate, and then the slower, more normal rate. However, it is made abundantly clear in the remainder of the article the possibility of double-digit births per family doesn’t need to extend for 430 years. Besides, something that is merely “possible” is not something that is at all likely. It is extremely improbable that any one person will win the lottery, yet someone eventually does. In order for Mr. Palmer to be consistent, he must go around being extremely skeptical of any announcement that anyone actually wins. (Knowing Mr. Palmer’s extreme lack of reading comprehension skills, which will become clearer in the following paragraphs, I should say for the record that I do not condone gambling, lest he launch into a tangent about how I am now resorting to supporting the lottery in order to defend my position). Continuing, Mr. Hardaway quotes me again, This means of course that Mr. Mast and his wife should only be bearing children in the first generation. This would have been all well and fine if Holding & Hardaway had followed through with this assertion. However, as will be noted below, Holding & Hardaway’s calculations continue to have Mr. Mast and his wife bearing children through a total of three generations! In response, Mr. Hardaway writes, They do not. Mr. Palmer has erred here. The 4.5 children born per population number doesn't mean that every family was giving birth. Then, there would have been 9 children per family, not 10. It would appear that Mr. Hardaway cannot recall his and Mr. Holding’s original calculations, even within the context of their own article. Here is what they originally proposed: Generation// Starting population + Births + Marriages = Population 1// 2 (Mr. Mast and wife) + 11+ 11 = 24 In this scenario, Mr. Mast and his wife (the “2” above) had 11 children plus 11 marriages. This gave an ending population figure for that generation of 24 (2+11+11=24). In my original article I noted, Following, Holding & Hardaway speculate (based on the biblical data) that after the first generation of children, the adults begin to intermarry so that “no one is added to the clan via that route.” Their formula then looks thus: Generation// Starting population + Births - Deaths = Population 2// 24 + 108 – 0 = 132 Notice here that Holding & Hardaway are allowing for no deaths in this second generational snippet (that is, in 58 years [29 + 29], not a single individual has died either in infancy, to childhood diseases, in childbirth, to accident or by any other means) and that the original two parents, who already birthed 11 children in the first generation, birth an additional 9 in the second. Even the example Holding & Hardaway start with, the Guinness World Record holder Mr. Mast, did not have 20 children so Holding & Hardaway have deviated from their “true-life, modern-day Jacob” already. What is implied in this scenario if Mr. and Mrs. Mast do not bear any further children? We must remove them then from the “starting population” (making 22 instead of 24; something Holding and Hardaway do not do) and then figure out how many children per family is implied. 22 x 4.5 = 99, not 108 as is the tally in Holding and Hardaway’s original calculation reproduced above. Then we can add Mr. and Mrs. Mast back into the figure (99) to arrive at our final total: 101. Of course, this contradicts Holding and Hardaway’s final calculations. I clearly showed, with a link to the CIA World Fact Book, that it is perfectly legitimate to state population growth in terms of births per population member. Brett, why don’t you hassle them for a while? Why don’t you show them why they state that Niger has 51.33 births per 1,000 of the population. Why, that can’t possibly be, since some of those 1000 are male, and some are too young and too old to have children. No, I’m just joking, Brett. Don’t waste their valuable time actually reading your e-mail, as they have more important things to worry about right now. Pay attention now, Brett. I’ll give you the key so you don’t go and make a movie along with Michael Moore about how the CIA, pressured by fundies in the Bush administration, conspired to make my demographic calculation look legitimate. Or at least, so it doesn’t keep you up at night. Suppose that there are 3 adults in a population - 2 are married and one is elderly. The married couple has 9 children. What is the birth rate of the population? It is 3 births per population member, or 3 times 3, even if one of the adults doesn’t do any of the producing. If, as Mr. Hardaway asserts above, there were 10 children per family, minus the original Mr. and Mrs. Mast, that means there would have been 22 people in the starting population for generation 2, equating to 11 families. If each family had 10 children, that would mean the population grew in the second generation by 110 children (11 families, each having 10 children would mean 110 children + the original 11 couples [22 males and females] + the original Mr. and Mrs. Mast whom Mr. Hardaway now claims did not bear any further children = 134). How many Till discussion group members does it take to change Mr. Palmer’s light bulb? Now, notice how closely this comes to my 132 based on 4.5 children per population member!! I confess - I did round up. If you have 108 children born to 10 families, it actually comes out to 9.82 children per family. Or, since Mr. Palmer is so demanding of precision, I should say that it comes to 9.81818181818181818181818181818181 children per family. I pity Mr. Palmer’s poor high school geometry teacher. How long did he carp about the exact circumference of a circle, based on the value of pi? Palmer continues, Mr. Hardaway continues to quote me selectively, taking entire passages out of context and without their supportive data: Although extended families might have occupied more than one house, high mortality rates probably kept most families from achieving the biblical ideal. But, by the same token, there were plenty of people who died long before they had a chance to turn 40. Another consideration that Holding & Hardaway fail to note is the number of men that may have died before siring children In repsonse to my point that divine intervention was necessary for longer lives and lower infant mortality rates, “Needless to say, such positive data was missing not only in his and Mr. Holding’s original article but in their rebuttal to my critique as well. I suppose assuming they would provide this data in the second go-round was “obnoxious” on my part and simply a polemical tactic to derail their apologetic and get them out of their fields of expertise which, at this point, seems only to lie in producing fanciful and sterile mathematical calculations in order to get a rousing cheer from their already convinced choir of like-minded believers…..Here, Mr. Hardaway has stepped off the scientific platform of providing evidence for such assertions and has instead resorted to the circular argumentation of appealing to the biblical data in order to prove the biblical data true. No doubt the Bible asserts that a divine being caused the nation of Israel to grow while in bondage. That is not the issue. The issue is whether or not that biblical claim is reasonable or feasible in the face of the historical data from the time.” J.P. clearly noted in response that the French Canadiens grew from 3000 to several million within 3 centuries, and that Russian Jews grew from 1.6 to 5.175 million from 1825 to 1900 - and for the most part, these growths happened in relatively primitive, unsanitary environments without the benefits of modern medicine!! Palmer ignores this, which we do find pretty obnoxious. In regards to the length of ancient lives, I confess!! I don’t have the actual birth and death records from ancient Egypt to substantiate the Bible’s claims!! Yes, producing these records lies outside of my area of expertise. The question of whether the long lives is possible turns on the “natural/supernatural/Are miracles possible?” debate, which I never purported to address. Palmer seems to fancy himself as being really sneaky and clever. I’m afraid he succeeds in derailing nothing, other than the straw man that he concocted. And I must return his compliment. He is quite an expert in misreading perfectly understandable sentences and drifting off into irrelevant tangents.
In response to my comments that I originally only intended to prove that the womb capacity was perfectively sufficient, Palmer replies,
Again, a circular argumentation that leads one nowhere when the original claim was that the incredible growth of the Hebrew nation under bondage was something that does not stretch skeptical credulity. As my article abundantly demonstrated, the claim indeed stretched the imagination and broke nearly all statistical data we have on population growths in the ancient world. This is not an argument at all - simply a statement of intent. But J.P.‘s Citation of Sarna rebuts this charge. And once again, I fear that I have to translate a perfectly understandable statement in terms that Palmer can understand. No, I are NOT claiming that citing Sarna does not prove that the Israelites actually grew this fast, it just means that it isn’t unreasonable and there is no prima facie reason to doubt it. Palmer then reasserts his charge that factors such as miscarriages, infertility, and the failure of some people to find a mate all mandate a lower birth rate. I pointed out that we did not make calculations factor these in for the sake of simplicity However, some families would have had more than 4 children, which would have been enough to balance those things out, so Palmer’s assertions in this regard were irrelevant. He replies, On the contrary, I don’t think my mention of miscarriages was irrelevant in the slightest. Holding and Hardaway’s figures calculate a certain percentage growth for the Hebrew population. What they assume is a certain number of births per couple. My insistence on considering miscarriages was to show that their rather inflated percentage needs to be tempered by a number of factors up to, and including, the reality of miscarriages. I admit, and concede, that their final figures would necessarily include only live births, but the reality of miscarriages needs to be acknowledged as a real temperance to the growth rate they have proposed. It is mind-boggling that Palmer is so ignorant that he actually denies that a society could have a sustained fertility rate of 4 children per woman, even after taking miscarriages, infertility and failure to find a mate into account. As this map readily shows, a few dozen countries have fertility rates above this amount for every woman in that society, ***EVEN ACCOUNTING FOR MISCARRIAGES, INFERTILITY, AND FAILURE OF SOME TO FIND A MATE.***. And in the past, the number of countries with a such rate was even larger. Even in the United States, as late as the 1950s, the fertility rate was 3.7 children per woman.In order to refute my argument, Palmer must now to refute every agency that has ever published such vital statistics. Maybe that can be another project he can team up with Michael Moore on. Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood? For this section, we will concentrate on objections to logistics of the Israelite population during the time preceding and up until the Exodus. Our first objection is made courtesy of the Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy [347]: It would have taken several days, if not weeks, for the message (of the departure for the Exodus -- JPH) to have reached the people in the outlying districts and even more time for people to have assembled and departed. Imagine contacting and assembling two million to three million people in one night in this day and age! Despite McKinsey's bigotry towards ancient people, and his doubts concerning their capabilities, a close investigation of the text reveals that this was not quite the one-two affair he perceives. Let's note some important verses: Exodus 12:3, 6 Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household...Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the people of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. Note that verse 3 above speaks of "this month" -- the revelation to Moses could have been made anywhere between the first and ninth day of the month. The people knew well in advance what would happen, and would have all the time between when they were told and the end of the fourteenth day to make preparations to leave. (And really, since they didn't have wardrobes full of clothes to pack, and since they had been surrounded by signs that God was about to get the Egyptians to let them go, exactly how long would it take to "get up and go" anyway?) Now the real question, though, is, how long would it really take to spread the message given in Ex. 12? Read the message of Ex. 12:21b-27 (the only message that was passed on to the people through the elders -- v. 21) aloud, and time yourself. Allowing for attention-getting and introductory/closing statements, and answering any questions of procedure, this message would take a minimum of 5 minutes to transmit. (The message of 11:2-3 may or may not have been given at this time; for the sake of argument, we'll assume that it was.) But let's be outrageous and say that it took 15 minutes to get the message out of someone's mouth. Now if this were a case of spreading the news single mouth to single ear, then perhaps the critics might have a point. But Moses and Aaron gave the message to the elders of Israel, not just one person apiece. How large this group was is uncertain, but let's choose the minimum again and say there were twelve -- one for each tribe. Now beneath the elders, there would be a highly-organized clan and family structure typical of Ancient Near Eastern nomadic and semi-nomadic societies -- for more on this, pick up any basic book on the subject, like Social World of Ancient Israel. Do that anyway, and you'll already be ten degrees smarter than the critics! Let's say the elders send runners around to gather these sub-leaders, on down the lines through whatever the established hierarchy was (and by this time, such a hierarchy would indeed be in place, as would a reasonably effective means of transmitting community data -- again, McKinsey and other critics' bigotry notwithstanding) down to the 600,000 men as heads of families. Assuming that it takes as much as an hour to either gather the necessary group (or visit each one in turn) we have transmission "episodes" of 1 hour and 15 minutes. We don't know how many steps this involved, but let's be stingy again and say that each person only told 12 people apiece per transmission episode. Here's how many layers of transmission we would have (and let's remember that those once told can continue passing the message) before all of 3 million people would "get the message":
So we have 6 transmission episodes at a minimum, and using the average, that's 6 times an hour and 15 minutes -- for a total of 7 hours and 30 minutes. Thus Moses could have gotten the ball rolling as late as the eighth day of the month, and the message would have been "there"! Our second objection from EBE is a little easier to deal with. It has to do with verses 12:35-36 -- The Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing. The LORD had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians. McKinsey tells us [347-8], "Assuming it took one hour to mobilize and eight hours to collect the things mentioned...the Israelites would have had fifteen hours to leave Egypt. That would have required them to move at more than sixty miles per hour, according to one source." This is typical McKinsey "scholarship" -- who is this "source", and how did he/she arrive at these conclusions? The one hour to mobilize is probably correct, given that the amount of personal property held by a given individual in this time could have fit into (at most) a large backpack. But eight hours to collect the spoils? To use a rather humorous parallel that is not as anachronistic as it sounds, I know children who can "trick or treat" an entire neighborhood of up to 75 houses in only a quarter of that time. Since this is not a case where there would be any duplication (we are logically assuming here that coverage "assignments" were given at a certain level in the transmission proceedings -- again, the bigotry of critics who think ancient people were too stupid to be that organized notwithstanding), and since we have a suitable "army" of people to make the rounds, I see this "spoils run" as taking no more than two hours -- with no need at all for superhuman speed. Related objections ask how a population this large was served by two midwives (an objection even Sarna rejects, on the proper grounds that these two would be "superintendents or guild heads of a much larger corps" [Sarn.EE, 95]). Another, which even Sarna proposes, asks how Moses could have served as sole judge over such a large population, though he answers his own objection by noting that Jethro suggested a full judiciary (Exodus 18). All this shows is that Moses was being unrealistic in thinking he could handle the whole caseload -- which makes him little different than many other progressive reactionaries! Making Your Move We now proceed to some of the issues actually involved in keeping the Exodus going. In this regard, one might wonder if there are any historical parallels that might be invoked. Truthfully, there are none that match that I have found as yet, though we can draw lessons from two examples: the Long March of Chairman Mao, and the nomadic Scythians (see below). The Long March was performed by the followers of Chairman Mao in 1935 as they attempted to retreat from enemy forces. [see Wil.LM, 66-7] The Long March was an Exodus in miniature: Between 100,000 and 150,000 men, women, and children banded together for a 1-year, 6,000 mile trek across mountains, swamps, forests, bandits, and hostile tribesmen; each man carried five pounds of rice and a shoulder pack filled with equipment. Are there parallels to be drawn here, despite the differences? Perhaps so. One might object to the practicality of so many people moving in tandem; we have noted in answer to this Glenn Miller's work in which he focusses particularly on movement crossing the "Red Sea". However, by extension his analysis can apply to other instances as well, including the final evacuation from Egypt. On the other hand, it should also be noted that nothing indicates that the Israelites spent all or any good part of 40 years "on the move" (the word used to describe what they did simply means living a nomadic lifestyle) or that they spent all that time packed into the efficient formation described in the Bible at one point, with the camps of tribes settled around the tabernacle in an orderly fashion. Thus it is absurd to complain about them being packed in like sardines, or the size of their encampment being unwieldly for mass movements. In terms of sustenance, the believer may obviously appeal to the miraculous provision of foodstuffs such as manna; but the Israelites also had their flocks and herds with them, and if needed, the ability to trade -- the Long Marchers had to depend upon limited provisions and the gifts of villagers. In terms of providing water, we see of course the miraculous provision of springs at least twice in the accounts; one may justly argue, given that the Pentateuchal narratives have been clearly designed for the purpose of oral communication, that these incidents are representative of what happened during the whole trip. Certainly it is absurd for critics to bandy about estimates of how many gallons of water, or how many trainloads of food or firewood, would be needed to support the Israelites and then smartly remark that such provision would have been impossible in a desert setting (especially if, as some theorists suppose, the Exodus took place in a fertile part of Arabia, not the Sinai peninsula). Even without miraculous provision, we may add, how do they think other ancient nations survived? Were they all primitives with bones in their noses that they could not work out systems to provide for their needs? (The Scythians survived just fine without firewood; they used their own herd animals for such purposes -- the bones made for firewood, and the carcasses made do as a stirring pot!) Similarly, one might object to the practical, everyday operation of such a community and problems such as communication and sanitation, but this is an argument that can be defeated analogically: The Long Marchers resorted to clever practicality to solve such problems. For example, items like needles and chopsticks were carried stuck under the peaks of hats or inside puttees; children as young as 11 or 12 were used as orderlies, buglers, mess-workers, water carriers, nurses, or messengers. A community that bands togeter against hardship is likely to do what it needs to survive. (We'll press with some practical examples from the Scythians in the next section.) But the objections raised against the Exodus in this regard are often more mundane -- and reply upon misunderstandings of key texts. Let's look at these brought up by McKinsey [348]:
Life in Scythia The Scythians, a nomadic people who inhabited the arid steppes of what is now Russia and environs from about 1000 BC into medieval times, provide us with certain practical parallels to the Exodus. We cannot parallel the population figures, since we have none, but here are a few points to consider the next time someone asks "How did the Jews do X during the Exodus?" Our source is Tippett's book, The First Horsemen [Tip.FH, 14-15, 99]
We therefore conclude our first edition of this essay with a general response to critics: If you ask us, "How did Israel do X?" -- I will ask you, "How did the Scythians do X?" Answer that, and you shall have my answer as well. Palmer on the Pyre Palmer more recently offered these comments to the "Scythian challenge". After whinging off-topic (as above) about our not covering what we had no need to cover, we have: The 'Elep Solution And now at reader suggestion, we take an initial look at a proposed solution to the Exodus numbers matter which simply reduces the totals and resolves all of the objections with one fell swoop. The answer in sum: The word translated "thousand" ('elep) ought rather be read as, "family units". Thus for example, as Sarna relates [Sarn.EE, 99], Reuben's "46,500 grown males" would be read as "forty six units". We will investigate several sources over the next few months to see how this theory bears out. Sarna suggests an insuperable difficulty in that the solution cannot explain the 22,273 firsborn sons of Numbers 3:34, or the 22,000 Levites of 3:39. We will see if any other proponents answer this objection. Sources
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
